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History of the Franks
St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927
Book 1, 6. Of Babylon
When men had multiplied and were being dispersed over all the earth, they came out of the East and discovered the grassy plain of Senachar. There they built a city; they strove to set up a tower which should reach to heaven. But God confounded their vain imagination and their tongue and their own selves, and dispersed them through every land over the wide world. And the name of the city was called Babel, which is to say, Confusion, for that there God confounded their tongues. This is Babylon, built by the giant Hebron, son of Chus. As the history of Orosius relates, it was disposed in a square upon a wondrous even plain; its walls were of burned brick laid with bitumen; they were fifty cubits thick and two hundred cubits high. The circumference was four hundred and seventy stadia, each stadium containing five aripennes. In each side were placed twenty-five gates, making a hundred in all. The doors of these gates were of wondrous size, and fashioned of cast bronze. The same historian narrates much more concerning this city, adding these words: ‘but though it was thus gloriously builded, yet was it conquered and overthrown.’1
Notes
- Orosius, Hist. II. vi.